GRAND CAYMAN

Day 5

Grand

Cayman

Grand Cayman has been one of our favorite stops over the years. We have done varios things for excursions each time we visited there. On our first visit back in 1999, we did a Stingray city tour. I can still hear the screams of the ladies as they saw the large dark shadows swimming silently below the shallow water. The shoal we stood on was no deeper than 30 inches deep. The Rays moved in and the women went up onto the shoulders of the men as they screamed in terror. In just a few moments I realized that they were not attacking.....just hungry.

It was decided by a few of us that we would do a combination Stingray City snorkle, a reef snorkle and Beach lunch. We started off with Stingray City.

We were the first boat there in the morning. The captain said the Rays would be hungry and will be looking for food when they realize we are there. The ship has a bucket of squid to use if you want to feed them by the stairs at the front of the Catamaran. Mike was ahead of his brother so he didn't see Matt stick his hand in the bait bucket and he patted his Mike on the butt as if to be saying " get a move on."

They entered the water and the huge hungry Rays started to attack the squid smell on Mikes Butt. I heard him saying" What the heck!" The water was about four feet deep and the Rays were swarming the bait smell. Finally with others in the water with bait to feed the Rays, the attack dispersed somewhat. Matt had the last laugh this time.

After awhile, we weighed anchor and headed towards the barrier reef. The current was strong here...... really too strong for me. I was trying to catch up with the "guide" but with the strong current, I was losing my strength. I was then trying to find my youngest son who I was worried about but it turned out he was keeping up with the guide. I was spent. So I blew some more air in my vest , turned onto my back and floated. My son Mike swam by, saw me and asked me if I was okay. I said I was okay but out of gas. So..... he towed me back to the ship.

Next stop was the beach and lunch. The food was much better than I anticipated. Carol and her parents and Marie wound up on the same beach with their beach excursion, so we snuck them some lunch.

George and my boys took a high speed banana boat ride that was very thrilling for them. I was hoping that Mike would keep his little brother Brian from falling off. He later told me that Brians butt was consistently bouncing off the banana boat but he kept him on.

Another fun day in Grand Cayman.